U.S. Clashes With France Over Palestinians Status At UN

WASHINGTON — The United States publicly disagreed with France, one of its closest allies, on Tuesday, after Paris said it would back a Palestinian bid for enhanced status at the United Nations.

“We obviously disagree with our oldest ally on this issue. They know that we disagree with them,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. “But it’s their sovereign decision to make, how to proceed.”

She confirmed that if a vote goes ahead as planned in the UN General Assembly this week, the United States will vote against the Palestinian request, which Washington regards as “a mistake.”

“We’re focused on a policy objective on the ground for the Palestinian people, for the people of Israel, which is to end up with two states that can live peacefully next to each other,” Nuland told journalists.

8. I think

the Palestinians should go a head and declare State hood without the approval of the U.S. and Israel. If the majority of the World recognizes them as a sovereign state, then who is the U.S. or Israel to deny them their rights? See, I don't march in lock step with the Obama Administration. I don't think two countries should dominate the U.N. That is also the difference I have with the U.S. government, they should be a non bias mediator, which they have not been when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians. If our Government can't act in a non bias way, then they need to step a side. I blame both Political Parties.

14. "World's largest open air jail" - Chomsky. Israel was founded as a theocratic state and

the only way to get a Jewish majority was to rid Palestine of several hundred thousand Palestinians. Christians and Muslims who are Israeli citizens have never had the full rights as Jews have had.
Israel is a thug state as was South Africa.

27. Supports torture while claiming to be a "civil libertarian".

28. Here is your friend Chomsky on Obama:

Look at the record, says Chomsky: Obama is in many cases worse than George Bush and Tony Blair -- on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel, Egypt -- and would be indicted for war crimes if the Nuremburg principles were applied.

Citizenship and Entry LawOn 31 July 2003, Israel enacted the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Provision), 5763-2003, a one year amendment to Israel's Citizenship Law denying citizenship and Israeli residence to Palestinians who reside in the West Bank or Gaza Strip and who marry Israelis; the rule has been waived for any Palestinian "who identifies with the State of Israel and its goals, when he or a member of his family has taken concrete action to advance the security, economy or any other matter important to the State." Upon expiration the law was extended for six months in August 2004, and again for four months in February 2005. On 8 May 2005, the Israeli ministerial committee for issues of legislation once again amended the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, to restrict citizenship and residence in Israel only to Palestinian men over the age of 35, and Palestinian women over the age of 25.

Defenders of the Citizenship and Entry Law say it is aimed at preventing terrorist attacks and preserving the "Jewish character" of Israel by restricting Arab immigration. The new bill was formulated in accordance with Shin Bet statistics showing that involvement in terror attacks declines with age. This newest amendment, in practice, removes restrictions from half of the Palestinian population requesting legal status through marriage in Israel. This law was upheld by a High Court decision in 2006.

Although this law theoretically applies to all Israelis, it has disproportionately affected Arab citizens of Israel; Arabs are far more likely to have Palestinian spouses than other Israelis. Thus the law has been widely considered discriminatory and the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has unanimously approved a resolution saying that the Israeli law violated an international human rights treaty against racism.

Civil rightsMain article: Ethnic discrimination in Israel#Directed at Arabs
The Israeli Declaration of Independence stated that the State of Israel would ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex, and guaranteed freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture. While formally equal according to Israeli law, a number of official sources acknowledge that Arab citizens of Israel experience discrimination in many aspects of life. Israeli High Court Justice (Ret.) Theodor Or wrote in The Report by the State Commission of Inquiry into the Events of October 2000:

The Arab citizens of Israel live in a reality in which they experience discrimination as Arabs. This inequality has been documented in a large number of professional surveys and studies, has been confirmed in court judgments and government resolutions, and has also found expression in reports by the state comptroller and in other official documents. Although the Jewish majority’s awareness of this discrimination is often quite low, it plays a central role in the sensibilities and attitudes of Arab citizens. This discrimination is widely accepted, both within the Arab sector and outside it, and by official assessments, as a chief cause of agitation.

The Or Commission report also states that activities by Islamic organizations may be using religious pretenses to further political aims. The commission describes such actions as a factor in 'inflaming' the Muslim population in Israel against the authorities, and cites the al-Sarafand mosque episode, with Muslims' attempts to restore the mosque and Jewish attempts to stop them, as an example of the 'shifting of dynamics' of the relationship between Muslims and the Israeli authorities.

According to the 2004 U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for Israel and the Occupied Territories, the Israeli government had done "little to reduce institutional, legal, and societal discrimination against the country's Arab citizens."

The 2004 U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices notes that:

"Israeli-Arab advocacy organizations have challenged the Government's policy of demolishing illegal buildings in the Arab sector, and claimed that the Government was more restrictive in issuing building permits in Arab communities than in Jewish communities, thereby not accommodating natural growth."
"In June, the Supreme Court ruled that omitting Arab towns from specific government social and economic plans is discriminatory. This judgment builds on previous assessments of disadvantages suffered by Arab Israelis."
"Israeli-Arab organizations have challenged as discriminatory the 1996 "Master Plan for the Northern Areas of Israel," which listed as priority goals increasing the Galilee's Jewish population and blocking the territorial contiguity of Arab towns."
"Israeli Arabs were not required to perform mandatory military service and, in practice, only a small percentage of Israeli Arabs served in the military. Those who did not serve in the army had less access than other citizens to social and economic benefits for which military service was a prerequisite or an advantage, such as housing, new-household subsidies, and employment, especially government or security-related industrial employment. The Ivri Committee on National Service has issued official recommendations to the Government that Israel Arabs not be compelled to perform national or "civic" service, but be afforded an opportunity to perform such service".
"According to a 2003 University of Haifa study, a tendency existed to impose heavier prison terms to Arab citizens than to Jewish citizens. Human rights advocates claimed that Arab citizens were more likely to be convicted of murder and to have been denied bail."
"The Orr Commission of Inquiry's report stated that the 'Government handling of the Arab sector has been primarily neglectful and discriminatory,' that the Government 'did not show sufficient sensitivity to the needs of the Arab population, and did not take enough action to allocate state resources in an equal manner.' As a result, 'serious distress prevailed in the Arab sector in various areas. Evidence of distress included poverty, unemployment, a shortage of land, serious problems in the education system, and substantially defective infrastructure.'"
The 2007 U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices notes that:

"According to a 2005 study at Hebrew University, three times more money was invested in education of Jewish children as in Arab children."
Human Rights Watch has charged that cuts in veteran benefits and child allowances based on parents' military service discriminate against Arab children: "The cuts will also affect the children of Jewish ultra-orthodox parents who do not serve in the military, but they are eligible for extra subsidies, including educational supplements, not available to Palestinian Arab children."

According to The Guardian, in 2006 just 5% of civil servants were Arabs, many of them hired to deal with other Arabs, despite the fact that Arab citizens of Israel comprise 20% of the population.

Although the Bedouin infant mortality rate is still the highest in Israel, and one of the highest in the developed world, The Guardian reports that in the 2002 budget, Israel's health ministry allocated Arab communities less than 0.6% of its budget for healthcare facility development.

In March 2010, a report released by several Israeli civil rights groups stated that the current Knesset was "the most racist in Israeli history" with 21 bills proposed in 2008 and 2009 that would discriminate against the country's Arab minority.

A preliminary report commissioned by Israel’s Courts Administration and the Israel Bar Association found in 2011 that Israeli Arabs are more likely than Israeli Jews to be convicted of crimes after being charged, more likely to be given custodial sentences, and were given longer sentences. It did not account for "mitigating or aggravating circumstances, prior criminal record and the convict’s gender."

Property ownership and housing
JNF collection boxes were used in Jewish communities around the world to collect donations for buying lands, planting forests and settling Jews in IsraelThe Jewish National Fund is a private organization established in 1901 to buy and develop land in the Land of Israel for Jewish settlement; land purchases were funded by donations from world Jewry exclusively for that purpose. The JNF currently owns 13% of land in Israel, while 79.5% is owned by the government, and the rest, around 6.5%, is evenly divided between private Arab and Jewish owners. Thus, the ILA administers 93.5% of the land in Israel (Government Press Office, Israel, 22 May 1997). A significant portion of JNF lands were originally properties left behind by Palestinian "absentees" and as a result the legitimacy of some JNF land ownership has been a matter of dispute. The JNF purchased these lands from the State of Israel between 1949 and 1953, after the state took control of them according to the Absentee Properties Law. While the JNF charter specifies the land is for the use of the Jewish People, land has been leased to Bedouin herders. Nevertheless, JNF land policy has been criticized as discrimination. When the Israel Land Administration leased JNF land to Arabs, it took control of the land in question and compensated the JNF with an equivalent amount of land in areas not designated for development (generally in the Galilee and the Negev), thus ensuring that the total amount of land owned by the JNF remains the same. This was a complicated and controversial mechanism, and in 2004 use of it was suspended. After Supreme Court discussions and a directive by the Attorney General instructing the ILA to lease JNF land to Arabs and Jews alike, in September 2007 the JNF suggested reinstating the land-exchange mechanism.

While the JNF and the ILA view an exchange of lands as a long-term solution, opponents say that such maneuvers privatize municipal lands and preserve a situation in which significant lands in Israel are not available for use by all of its citizens. As of 2007, the High Court delayed ruling on JNF policy regarding leasing lands to non-Jews, and changes to the ILA-JNF relationship were up in the air. Adalah and other organizations furthermore express concern that proposed severance of the relation between the ILA and JNF, as suggested by Ami Ayalon, would leave the JNF free to retain the same proportion of lands for Jewish uses as it seeks to settle hundreds of thousands of Jews in areas with a tenuous Jewish demographic majority (in particular, 100,000 Jews in existing Galilee communities and 250,000 Jews in new Negev communities via the Blueprint Negev).

The Israel Land Administration, which administers 93% of the land in Israel (including the land owned by the Jewish National Fund), refuses to lease land to non-Jewish foreign nationals, which includes Palestinian residents of Jerusalem who have identity cards but are not citizens of Israel. When ILA land is "bought" in Israel it is actually leased to the "owner" for a period of 49 years. According to Article 19 of the ILA lease, foreign nationals are excluded from leasing ILA land, and in practice foreigners may just show that they qualify as Jewish under the Law of Return.

Israeli law also discriminates between Jewish and Arab residents of Jerusalem regarding rights to recover property owned before the dislocations created by the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The 1950 Absentees Property Law stipulated that any property within post-war Israel which was owned by an Arab who had left the country between 29 November 1947 and 19 May 1948, or by a Palestinian who had merely been abroad or in area of Palestine held by hostile forces up to 1 September 1948, lost all rights to that property. Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes by Jewish or Israeli forces, before and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, but remained within the borders of what would become Israel, that is, those currently known as Arab citizens of Israel, are deemed present absentees by the legislation. Present absentees are regarded as absent by the Israeli government because they left their homes, even if they did not intend to leave them for more than a few days, and even if they did so involuntarily.

Following the 1967 Six Day War in which Israel occupied the West Bank, from where it annexed East Jerusalem, Israel then passed in 1970 the Law and Administration Arrangements Law allowing for Jews who had lost property in East Jerusalem and the West Bank during the 1948 war to reclaim it. Palestinian residents of Jerusalem (absentees) in the same positions, and Arab Israelis (present absentees), who owned property in West Jerusalem or other areas within the state of Israel, and lost it as a result of the 1948 war, cannot recover their properties. Israeli legislation, therefore, allows Jews to recover their land, but not Arabs.

In the early 2000s, several Community settlement in the Negev and the Galilee were accused of barring Arab applicants from moving in. In 2010, the Knesset passed legislation that allowed admissions committees to function in smaller communities in the Galilee and the Negev, while explicitly forbidding committees to bar applicants based on the basis of race, religion, sex, ethnicity, disability, personal status, age, parenthood, sexual orientation, country of origin, political views, or political affiliation. Critics, however, say the law gives the privately run admissions committees a wide latitude over public lands, and believe it will worsen discrimination against the Arab minority.

41. The poster I replied to said the people of the West Bank were hostages.

Israel never attacked the West Bank. In fact Israel never attacked Gaza. It was a retaliation against rocket attacks from Gaza. I guess the people of Gaza should be able to lob rockets into Israel and Israel should just sit there.

Regarding your death ratio if you attack someone then expect the consequences. If you cowardly hide your rocket launchers in residential neighborhoods, hospitals and schools then expect the consequences. If you cowardly strap bombs to your children and send them into teenage pizza parlors then expect the consequences.

BTW since you are so concerned about death ratios should the U.S. have stopped killing Japanese as soon as we got "even" with the lives lost at Pearl Harbor?

13. Maybe,

I don't understand the issues as well as you do. I don't see no reason they can't if the over whelming majority of the World recognizes them as a sovereign state. Just what can Israel and the United States do about it? Are we talking about the issues of Borders? If that is the case, then the U.N. needs to get on the ball. The Palestinians have been waiting too long.

The Palestinians can build up a military and accept the responsibilities of a sovereign state. Then it would be the Government and people in Gaza isolated. The Palestinians in the West Bank can be used as an example like South Korea. The people in Gaza, does not have the where with all of North Korea. A strong Palestinian State can be seen as another ally, than an adversary. The U.S. should be working with these people and so should Israel.

50. Fatah has no power in Gaza

52. in gaza, no

but they still run the west bank, which is the lion's share of the state of palestine (i love saying that now) both in population and territory. and my experience is only anecdotal but i do know quite a few palestinians and palestinian americans and they are all Fatah.

but you are right, i am sure hamas doesn't give two shits about what anyone but themselves think about anything.

15. K&R for Palestinian statehood!!!

42. That's the big problem

I was always puzzled why the Palestinians didn't at least try Gandhi and MLK's Nonviolent Resistance until I realized that the essential ingredient was and would be missing: Media coverage. If the re are no journalists, or at least who are not Megaphones for Israel's spin, what would be happening would never get disseminated throughout the world.
If nobody reports the truth regarding Nonviolent Resistance the Palestinians can, were and will be slaughtered with impunity.

43. Exactly.

''When Ben Bagdikian first published `The Media Monopoly' in 1982, some 50 corporations controlled most of the major media outlets in the United States: 1,787 daily newspapers; 11,000 magazines; 9,000 radio stations; 1,000 television stations; 2,500 book publishers and seven major movie studios. By the time the fourth edition was released in 1993, the number was down to about 20 corporations, and it is still dropping.''

~Molly Ivins, Ft. Worth Star Telegram

- Now it's down to around half a dozen corporations who ''make'' the news......

30. Have you retracted the bill for your lost Hatian slaves, France?

(Actually, when I look to answer my own question, it looks like France sort of offloaded Haiti's debt to the Inter-American Development Bank, and in recent years a good proportion of Haiti's international debt has been reduced or forgiven through international cooperation and a big unilateral action from Venezuela. So yay, France, perhaps, maybe!)